THE twelve-year-old girl whose body was found at Longsdale Village, East Bank Berbice, died as a result of Asphyxiation due to Broncho-aspiration of Gastric content, compounded by compression injury to the neck.”

The findings were given by Government Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh who performed a post mortem examination with dissection, at Anthony Funeral Home, West Coast Berbice.
Dead is twelve-year-old Ashley Ayana Agard, a Secondary School student of Rotterdam, East Bank Berbice. On Monday, the girl was found unresponsive with froth flowing from her mouth at her neighbour’s home at Longsdale Village. She was subsequently taken to the New Amsterdam hospital where she was pronounced dead.

According to Shunnamae Gaffar, she was alerted that something was amiss, after hearing the screams of her daughter. “I was upstairs. She [her daughter] and Ashley was playing. She screamed calling me, Mummy come see wha Ashley do.”
She continued, “When I came downstairs I saw Ashley seated on the ground with a piece of the hammock material around her neck and froth flowing from her mouth. I removed the cloth from around her neck. I put her to lie on the ground. I called my neighbour Allana. She said Ashley was breathing, and that I should call Ashley’s mother,” she said.

According to the woman, when Ashley’s mother Samantha came, she started to scream, and while doing so, picked up the unresponsive child and took her home.
According to Ms Downer, her daughter, the second of four children, had not attended Vryman Erven’s Secondary School that day because she complained of a headache.
It was revealed that after she returned home, she placed Ashley on the bed with the hope she would have revived.

But, her older brother Ramalo was concerned that she was not waking up, and hurriedly ran to the nearby sawmill where his step father Sylvester was employed. After narrating his fears to the parent, together they rushed home before taking the preteen to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.